Seattle, Washington – October 2, 2008 – Vernon Environmental, Inc. (dba: VEI) announced today its new insurance cost recovery program for owners, sellers and buyers of contaminated commercial real estate.  Conrad Vernon, President and CEO explained, “We are very excited to provide this new service.  VEI’s program is designed to assist our clients with insurance cost recovery to unlock the market value of nonperforming contaminated properties. VEI finds the supporting insurance policies, provides a strong environmental package for submittal to the insurance carrier, engages in settlement negotiation support and works closely with the environmental attorneys and other stakeholders involved in the insurance cost recovery process.  The resultant insurance settlement pays for investigation, regulation, cleanup and legal costs.” 

Mr. Vernon defines insurance archeology as a quintessential part of their new insurance cost recovery program, “ Insurance archeology is the reconstruction and analysis of historical insurance coverage.  It offers the potential to discover lost insurance coverage that will fund environmental investigation, cleanup and legal costs.  Insurance archeology will contribute to our client’s successful real estate risk management purchase and sale strategies.”  

Mr. Vernon believes that this program is timely in a credit-constrained economy,  “Many commercial and industrial properties have been environmentally impacted from years of operations.  These properties remain contaminated due to expensive investigation and cleanup costs.   Owners are not able to refinance through institutional financing and potential buyers are not able to obtain institutional financing due to the environmental liability. VEI has the experience to put into action a strong insurance archeology and cost recovery program for its clients to turn a nonperforming property into a performing asset.”

Established in 1998, Vernon Environmental, Inc. is a full-service environmental consulting firm.  VEI is dedicated to providing environmental consulting to its clients from a risk management prospective.   For more information please visit http://www.vernonenvironmental.com or call 206.686.2469.